Bardo
by Xleste
Summary: "Bardo" means transition spaces. This fic contains scenes from "Knockout", taking place in the days between Roy Montgomery's death and his funeral. Kate meant what she said to Rick with, "If you're very lucky, you find someone willing to stand with you."
1. Chapter 1: If Only

_Author's Note: _

This begins after Kate runs to Roy after he's shot in 3x24, "Knockout". It started because I was caught by the moment where Kate looks at Rick and says, "If you're very lucky, you find someone willing to stand with you". I started wondering about what could have happened in the time between a death and a funeral, because it's usually at least a couple of days, and what if there was even more at stake than we as viewers knew. I still think there are worlds of unsaid things between them, and yet, I could also see a universe where a lot more got said than was shown in that episode - which actually makes the episode all the more poignant for me, the sense of possibility heightened. I hope you enjoy this. :) It is NOT a post-episode fix, though who knows where the muse goes...

I've been off the fanfic world for a bit, real life caught up, but hoping to continue because I really do love what people here contribute to the world and to my enjoyment of this great series. Thanks to Kavi Leighanna and Ignacio2012 who remind me of what's worth it about coming back and writing...There are actually a bunch of other authors who I've enjoyed recently that I am just so grateful for.

Also, these characters do not belong to me - they're the wonderful creations of Andrew Marlowe and company.

* * *

><p>Castle was eerily reminded of pulling her off Coonan when he knelt down beside her, slid an arm around her shoulder. He could feel her shoulders shaking as he brought his arms around her, and just held tight. There was no struggle this time, no desperately loving fight to keep them both quiet. He pressed his lips to her temple, and after a long, long time, she turned her face into his shoulder and let her weight sink down onto the cold concrete of the hanger floor and against his side.<p>

They stayed there for what seemed an eternity, until he finally heeded the insistent buzz of his cell phone. Esposito. "Roy's dead." His voice was raw. The call was brief, the only addendum was their location before he killed the line.

"Kate...Kate..." His voice was soft, insistent. She wiped her eyes, swallowed hard and looked at him. She took a deep breath, reaching down one last time to touch Montgomery's face.

"I forgave him, damnit..."

He shook his head helplessly at her, a writer at a loss of words - again. Too often with her.

She slowly got up...and then extended her hand to him to help him rise. A truce or an olive branch, he wasn't sure yet which. "We need to say that Roy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had NOTHING to do with Lockwood..."

He got what she meant by the intensity of her words.

"We need to find out who these men are, where they came from, how they contacted him, how he contacted them..." She was all business - a facade that lasted all of a minute before she looked up at the ceiling and shook her head viciously, a primal, gutteral swear from her throat.

Esposito and Ryan were first on the scene. They broke into a run as soon as they saw Beckett and Castle by the bodies.

Esposito swore, his hands balled into fists. The look on his face was frightening in its intensity, in its roil of rage and grief.

Ryan ran his palms down his face, those open, decent features slick with tears. "He kept trying to retire, god damnit...Beckett..."

Even in her own grief, she comforted, reaching out briefly to touch his shoulder. "We take care of our own. He was a good man. He came here to take a stand, not betray me."

Ryan and Esposito looked up at her intently, something like relief mirroring on their faces at that.

Beckett continued fiercely, softly, "We get CSI here. 1PP will want reports up the ass. He called backup, we got here too late...he took them out as a hero." Beckett's voice broke. "He IS a hero."

They called the Medical Examiner's office and the precinct, and then looked at each other. Beckett pocketed Montgomery's phone without saying a word.

Ryan said numbly, "His family. Evelyn...the girls..."

Kate let out a long breath. "I'll do it...personally."

The arrival of more cops, a medical examiner, and crime scene investigators made the scene chaotic. Cops from the Twelfth and other precincts calling in as the news started to spread, they all gave as sparse statements as they could with enough detail to satisfy seasoned cops. The CSI crew was hushed, voices somber. Beckett requested the duty of letting Montgomery's family know - it gave her an excuse to be briskly on her way.

Castle caught up with her as he saw her finally leaving the scene. "I'm driving, Kate." She closed her eyes for a moment, and then nodded. The drive was silent, not uncomfortably so. She stared out the window.

* * *

><p>They went to Montgomery's house that night. Castle watched Beckett straighten her spine and only he knew the micro-hesitation as she reached up to ring the doorbell. He silently put his hand on her shoulder, long enough to squeeze before letting his hand fall away.<p>

Evelyn was a cop's wife long enough to know that Beckett at her doorstep in the middle of the night wasn't a bad thing. Still, she tried denial first. "Are you looking for Roy? He's working late..." She didn't quite meet Beckett's eyes.

"Evelyn. Roy was killed tonight. He took out four men, including the one that shot him. I am so sorry for your loss. He was like a father to me." Beckett's voice was raw, the empathy unmistakeable. "Evelyn, I'm so sorry..."

Evelyn just stood there with her eyes closed for awhile before they opened, wet with tears. "He was supposed to retire... I knew something was off when he said good bye to me and the girls today..." Beckett traded a quick glance with Castle at this. Evelyn's voice broke as she continued, "The girls...I have to tell the girls."

The older daughter, Mary, was already up, standing at the top step of their stairway with a teddy bear in her arms. "Mom..."

Castle closed the door behind him, trying not to intrude on the family grief and aching as he watched Beckett support Evelyn.

* * *

><p>An hour later, the door shut behind Castle and Beckett, leaving them on the doorstep. They'd done what they could, offered what truth they knew and were willing to share, the grief they were unhesitating and unconditionally willing to share, and the small niceties of tea and tissue that are completely inadequate in the face of loss but still small kindnesses.<p>

He looked at her. "I'm not leaving you tonight."

Shockingly, she acquiesced, too damned tired to fight. He called Alexis on the way to her apartment. Beckett tuned out the conversation, though she heard Alexis' shock and was struck by the solidity of his reassurances. When had she started thinking of Castle as reliable? The meet at the cafe with Raglan? She looked over briefly to study his profile, her thoughts circling and circling. She knew she was alive, breathing, feeling the grief because of Montgomery...because of Castle. The "if onlys" played in her head, wondering if she could've evened the playing field, if Montgomery would still be alive. As a woman who lived with a lot of "if onlys" already, she also knew the futility of it...and another voice resonated, another dead man who she thought had betrayed her. _The last thing you want to do is look back on your life and wonder if only.._.

She let them into their apartment, remembering the last time they'd stood at this threshold together.

He heard her phone ring, glanced over at her to see her studying the caller ID flashing "Josh" with the surgeon's too-handsome mug on it...and watched as she just hit ignore.

He went to her kitchen and got her a glass of water, while she changed into sweats in her bedroom. She came out with a blanket and pillow for him, and he set up his spot on the couch. They stood there awkwardly for a moment. "Kate...I'm sorry...He loved you so much."

She dropped her head for a moment, dark hair obscuring her face, and then raised her face to look at him. "You know... today...an age ago, he told me that whatever the mayor said, he really didn't have to keep you around because it was HIS shop." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "He did it because he thought you were good for me...just like he called you tonight when I wanted you gone." Her voice was so low he barely heard her next words. "He was right. He thought a lot of you, Castle..."

He swallowed around his own grief. "I looked up to him to...still do. Didn't have a lot of male role models in my life..."

She reached up to wipe wetness off his cheek.

"Kate...," he whispered.

"You were right. We never talk... and we should..."

"...but not tonight..."

"...soon."

It felt good, right to be on the same page, that rhythm of finishing each other's words for the first time turned on _them_. Her hand dropped from his face and she stepped back. Before she closed the door to her room, he heard her say, "Thanks...Rick."

The unspoken "always" hung between them.

For the second time in his life, he slept on her couch. He had his own "if only"s but the one thing he was dead sure about was that he was fiercely glad it wasn't her on that hanger floor. In the pre-dawn light, he heard a soft, punctuated sound that his brain interpreted as a sob...and then another, and then quiet. He lay in the dark with his eyes open, his own vigil in the night.


	2. Chapter 2: Redemption

At dawn the next morning, Ryan and Esposito gathered at her apartment before they were all due to show up at the precinct. They took Castle's presence for granted, though detective eyes didn't miss the pillow and blanket on the sofa.

"No one outside this immediate family ever needs to know about this. As far as the world is concerned, Roy Montgomery died a hero. We owe it to him...all of us."

They looked at each other and nodded, a solemn pact between the four of them.

Ryan said, "We know someone's still out there though...Today will be a mess, but we'll start running phone records, try to ID the other men."

Beckett looked at her two detectives, two solid men that she trusted in a heartbeat - an increasing rarity in her world. Make that three men in the room that she trusted. Perhaps the only three men she trusted, aside from her father. She didn't take the word family lightly.

"How are you two doing?"

She got a jerk of the shoulder from Esposito, and the look on Ryan's face said he'd seen better days.

When Ryan and Esposito left her apartment, Castle turned to her and said, "I'll drop you off at the station. Mother and Alexis have a million questions and I need to see them...but I'll be there later today." She nodded.

"One more thing..." He stood by her side as she added a new face to her hidden murder board. They regarded it together, and she let her shoulder rest against his before they headed out.

* * *

><p>Castle got home in time to see Alexis and Martha, spent awhile just holding both of them in his arms. The thought of losing his little girl to college before he expected it was in the back of his mind, but neither of them raised it just yet. He let his mother mother him, though in Martha fashion, it involved the offer of a stiff drink before he headed back to the precinct.<p>

There was little time to grieve. The death of the one of NYPD's own meant reports, difficult conversations, and a challenging three-ring media circus. The Police Commissioner temporarily appointed a Lieutenant out of Vice to temporarily take Montgomery's chair, though the new Acting Captain Simmons had enough tact to keep his own desk in the meantime.

At the end of the grueling day at the precinct, Castle glanced one more time at Montgomery's empty office before turning to Beckett. "Do you want a ride home?" he asked, partly in courtesy, partly in hope.

"No. I'm seeing Josh." She watched his face, the minute expressions, how far he went to control himself. She almost didn't speak as she turned away to get her coat, but then turned back to look at him. "I have to clear things up...with him...and then you and can...talk."

She watched comprehension dawn in his eyes...and concern for her. It killed him to say it, and the voice of reason was not a role he thought he wanted to grow comfortable with, but he said it haltingly anyway. "Kate...don't do anything...rash."

She actually rolled her eyes at him. "Shut up, Castle."

Her days were reinforcing the truth that it only got worse before it got better...

* * *

><p>She drove to Josh's place, a posh flat not far from the hospital where the main decorative flaw was the dead houseplants.<p>

He took one look at her when he opened the door and wrapped his arms around her. "You look like hell." His voice was warm with affection and concern. "I caught the news - about your captain. How are you?"

"Definitely seen better days." She took in the smell of him, let her forehead rest on his chest.

"Oh, baby...I'm so sorry..." He tightened the arm wrapped around her, tucking the top of her head beneath his chin. She was human enough, and woman enough, to savor that comfort while it lasted. He was good at comforting, and she liked the feeling of being in his arms.

Then she pulled away to look into his face, because he deserved that at least and her day - and his - was about to get worse. "Josh...I'm breaking up with you."

She felt him tense, his arms still around her before they slowly fell away and he took a step back. "I think I'm supposed to say that you shouldn't make decisions while you're grieving...but I'm not sure that would change a damn thing."

She shook her head. "I'd probably agree with you... you're right. It wouldn't...it shouldn't." She hated hurting him...and hated that she was hurting.

"It's the writer...isn't it?"

She shook her head. "No. It's that I haven't opened up. I'm a cop because my mother was murdered. I live with it every day, it's something my captain is dead over, and I'm going to find the sons of bitches who did both those things..." Anger seeps into her words, and she shakes her head to regain her focus, raising her head to find his eyes again. "It's things like that that I can't tell you that are the walls between us - that I put up. Turns out they need to be battered at..." She took another deep breath. "You need to do the things you do to save the world - and the world needs you, but the truth is that you and I don't need each other."

Truth has a peculiar ring to it, a bittersweet flavor to its tones.

"I love you, Kate. I wouldn't have stayed home from Haiti for just anyone."

What was with the men in her life, having unsaid things to tell her when it was too late? She still had Royce's letter in the same box she kept her father's watch in at night. And she would never forget her last words with Montgomery... She looked up at Josh, appreciating both his surgeon's steadiness and the maverick edge that had him roving the world. For a moment, it seemed too much to bear - to give this up on top of loss after loss. But there was someone waiting for her, even if it didn't yet feel right to reach for that.

"I love you too." They both understood it as a closing and not an opening. "I should go." It said something that there wasn't much of hers beyond a toothbrush at his place to clear out.

She put her helmet on, though the tears stinging hot. She wasn't sure she was grieving for Montgomery, Josh, or herself.

* * *

><p>Two hours and a helluva bike ride later, she showed up at her father's house. Sitting across the familiar kitchen table to him with a hot drink was like a balm. His forehead was wrinkled with concern as he said, "Montgomery was a good man. Was real proud of you."<p>

She nodded, burying her face in her mug as she swallowed the hot tea, letting it warm her inside. Unlike other people she knew, her dad didn't press so they sat there in silence until she said, "Broke up with Josh tonight."

Jim was silent, absorbing that. "Well, you were never one to do things halfway." He didn't add much, just sat quietly, steadily across from her.

She ran her palms over her face and they came away damp. And then she rolled her eyes as her phone buzzed. Pulling it out, she shook her head at the caller ID. "Castle..." She dropped a quick text. _I'm okay. Staying with my dad. _

Her father studied her, and then asked, "Are you tangling with a trained killer, Katie?"

"Not anymore." Her eyes narrowed. "Who told you?"

"I went to see Richard Castle a few days ago. I know what you're like when you have something in your head."

She frowned. "Just what did you two talk about?"

"You. I didn't want to lose you. Asked him to stop you from doing anything stupid – seemed like he was the only one you might listen to."

She huffed at that, a disbelieving little sound, and shook her head. "He tried...and then I said it was over between us."

Her father looked sadly at her. "Oh, Katie..."

"He's too thickheaded to listen to me."

"He loves you."

She'd been ignoring everyone around her telling her Castle cared for her for years...Lanie, Esposito, Agent Shaw, Royce... For a detective, she was pretty masterful at being blind to evidence. "He told you that?"

"I didn't need to ask."

He watched her, his fierce, beautiful, frighteningly willful only child.

"I'm tired, Dad."

"Let's get you to bed, Katie."

He made up her room for her, and paused in the doorway to wish her good night.

She was wearily exhausted but reached for her cell phone anyway, hit the first autodial before she could think twice.

He answered instantly, his voice warm, low, concerned, and achingly familiar. "How did things go with Josh?"

"It sucked."

They both stayed silent on the line for awhile, before she murmured, "What is it about the men in my life that I've loved, Castle? My dad who lost it after my mom died...Royce and that treasure...Montgomery the third cop..."

He listened to the soft sound of her breathing as he thought about the question. "I guess in a way you could see it as a long series of betrayals. I think another way would be to look at it as a long series of redemptions. Your father is sober and alive because of you. Royce turned around in the end. And Montgomery - he chose his stand and was a better man because of you. He always said you were the best he'd ever trained..."

"Redemption, huh? Then what am I saving _you_ from?" Her soft voice had a bitter, self-mocking edge. She sort of expected a joke.

"A life without you? My life without you...would be very different." His mind shuddered back from imagining that, though the writer in him couldn't help going there for a moment, tasting that bleakness. "Maybe ... maybe we save each other."

For the first time since their fight, she found a small smile - a real one. "Maybe..."

She was done for the night, tired to her bones, done in. There's more to say, but not tonight. "Good night, Castle."

"Kate...see you tomorrow."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note<em>: One more chapter, I think - in the timeline in my head, there's still one more day between where this chapter ends and Roy's funeral.


	3. Chapter 3: Because I Know No Other Way

Getting up out of her own bed at her dad's place was comforting, disorienting, and then comforting again. It was just after dawn when she got out of bed, found some old sweats, and hit the pavement for a long run. Thoughts circled until she found her rhythm, got lost in the sound of her footfall and the burn in her muscles. Miles later, wending through the familiar neighborhood she'd played in as a girl, she stopped. Occasionally she felt a prickling between her shoulder-blades, the eerie feeling of being watched. She bent to catch her breath, surreptitiously checking her surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary. Wished that were true of the rest of her life...

She squeezed in a brief session with the kickboxing bag in the basement, where she let some of the underlying anger of the last few days out. Sometimes it bubbled up at Montgomery – for lying, for dying – and sometimes Castle, for listening to him and making her go. And sometimes it was about herself...

Jim had an omelet ready for her when she came up, another old pattern, his quiet way of taking care of her. She snarfed it down, got a quick shower, a long hug, and rapid exit.

* * *

><p>She met at Castle at the ME's office the next morning. He was waiting for her with bear claw and coffee in hand, and a steaming cup of hot tea for Lanie. They weren't particularly surprised to see Esposito there, stoically grim.<p>

Lanie didn't do much more than squeeze Kate's hand in support, but it was a helluva squeeze and Lanie had a talent for conveying a lot with her eyes.

Esposito sounded frustrated, ready to hit something again. "We tried fingerprint, facial recognition, dental records on those bastards. Nothing's popped by fake IDs...good ones. We're tacking down travel records, Ryan's at the precinct to see if there's at least a pattern in those...The precinct is a zoo. Tenth is covering our homicides until after...tomorrow."

Espositio didn't even bother to try to hide his goodbye to Lanie as the detectives left the station. He caught her in a long, fierce kiss, more possessive than passionate, punctuated by a barely audible endearment. She stood there, flustered and concerned as she watched him stride off.

* * *

><p>Stepping off the precinct elevator with coffee almost seemed normal. The increased number of officers running around belied that, a mix between ongoing investigative resources and cops stopping by to talk memories and shop. Montgomery's impending funeral had its own inexorable gravity pull. Retirees whose faces hadn't seen the inside of the Twelfth were coming out of the woodwork.<p>

The long conversation with Evelyn on the phone was hard. Would Beckett speak at the Captain's funeral? Of course. Castle felt a mixture of astonished, pleased, humbled, remorseful as he heard the request that he join other close friends and officers as pallbearers. He'd never felt more like one of the NYPD's own as the Twelfth claimed him – and yet at so very high a cost.

Late in the afternoon as the number of retired cops mingled with new increased and their schmancy gourmet coffee maker went kaput from sheer overwhelm, Castle stood up and called out, "Hey – Old Haunt – drinks on me."

Beckett smiled to herself. It was such a Castle thing to do – and a great way to clear out the precinct to a skeleton crew. No one but them knew that Ryan and Esposito tossed the Captain's office, arriving late to the impromptu wake.

NYPD's finest filled the Old Haunt's cellar, raising numerous glasses to toast their fallen. The do-you-remembers began early and raucously, and Castle learned things he'd never known about the man he'd served under. Between the punctuated bursts of laughter, the silences abruptly fell and heads would bow. Officers would look at one another, clap each other on the shoulders, make jokes that were sometimes bad but that everyone laughed at anyway. The intermittent, heartfelt toast "To Roy Montgomery" echoed repeatedly through the night (and likely into the next morning).

Beckett bailed early, claiming exhaustion and the need to prepare for the funeral.

* * *

><p>Castle showed up at her apartment an hour later. His mind went into overdrive when she opened the door. She wasn't wearing much beyond a towel carelessly wrapped around wet hair and a robe that showed off her glorious legs. "I interrupted a bath...", <em>though not in the way that I would've liked to<em>, was his unspoken add.

She showed him a – to him – adorably wrinkled fingertip. "I was actually getting out. But I'm only letting you in because you have food." She tapped her nose, the smell of his proffering distinctive.

Behind his back in his other hand was the bag of Chinese take-out, and he held it out for her. "You didn't eat anything earlier..."

She shook her head while he let himself into her kitchen. Her voice had a dry, ironic tone as she called out to him, "Make yourself at home." She dressed efficiently, returning in soft yoga pants and a loose sweatshirt.

"What's this?" he asked quietly, noting the notepad on her coffee table covered in her distinctive writing.

"Trying to figure out what to say at the funeral tomorrow..."

They settled in companionably to eat. She put a kettle on for tea. For the night, her murder board remained shut behind them.

He noticed a scrape across her knuckles as she was sipping. "What's that from?"

"Punching something a couple days ago." She eyed him with big dark eyes over the rim of her mug as she took a sip. "I may have imagined your face on it."

"Are you still mad at me?"

"Yes...and no...and yes. It's complicated."

He considered her face, her words - her aliveness. "I can live with that."

She nodded slowly. "Me too."

After dinner, she gave her dress uniform a press, and worked on the words for Roy's funeral on a yellow legal pad as she sat tucked on her couch. He sat in a chair with his laptop open, contemplating the dedication for his latest Nikki Heat novel. More than ever, the dedication belonged to the woman across from him – but it felt appropriate to find some few words for his captain too.

He watched her stretch with a yawn, deliciously so. She had such beautiful grace in the simple things she did. "I'm heading to bed." He watched her face comically rearrange itself at the unintentional opening. "Alone..."

He grinned at her. "I'll see you in the morning... Do you want a ride?"

"No, thanks. My dad wants to be there so we'll ride in together."

"Alexis and Mother will be there too."

He felt tense, anxious about leaving her alone – hating to leave her, period. That wasn't new, though. He'd dealt with his longing to dog her heels for three years. He summoned a smile for her as he rose. "I'll see you there then."

"Good night, Castle."

He hesitated, watched her eyes widen as he leaned in, and then narrow as he brushed his lips against her cheek, inhaled the scent of cherries. "'Night, Kate..."

She closed the door behind him, yanked her hand down when she caught her own fingers playing with her hair and hoped he hadn't caught that. Well, at least this time he wasn't distracting her to filch a file. (The memory of their initial meet still made her grin when he wasn't around.) The constantly shifting sands of their relationship continued to throw her off, some new awareness between them inexorably changing the game. It was a matter of time now - and perhaps it had always been.

Eager to sleep and aware of the day ahead, she cleaned up the dishes. Nearly obscured was a tiny envelope tucked beneath her tea mug, placed for her to find it. She frowned as she opened it, unconsciously moving to sit on her couch as she unfolded thick, cream paper.

K.B. -  
>Mother recently observed that for a writer, I don't have words around you – or for you.<br>I know you would disagree and say that I have too many – but not often the right, or timely ones.  
>In fine literary tradition, I've found some to borrow.<br>- R.C.

The signature that graced a thousand breasts was scrawled beneath a poem that took her breath away. Long ago as a college student traipsing around Europe, she'd stumbled across the a couple lines penned by the poet Pablo Neruda carved into a wall along a hiking path on the island of Capri in Italy. She was different then, before her mother's death, eager to drink in the passion and literature of the world, and his words were a fountain. She'd almost forgotten that moment, that self.

_I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,  
><em>_or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
><em>_I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
><em>_in secret, between the shadow and the soul._

_I love you as the plant that never blooms  
><em>_but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;  
><em>_thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,  
><em>_risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body._

_I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.  
><em>_I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;  
><em>_so I love you because I know no other way_

_than this: where I does not exist, nor you,  
><em>_so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,  
><em>_so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep_

She stared at the words on the paper, starkly written in his bold, slashing handwriting on the page. She read them once, twice, three times, and again until the words started chasing each other around over and over in her head. It overwhelmed. _As certain dark things are to be loved...in secret... I love you straightforwardly ...because I know no other way... _

(She did have to snort a little at the notion of 'without complexities' ...and then dropped her head in her hands, because everything she fought against over all the moments of knowing him was how _easy_ it was to want him to be around...)

Sleep was far longer coming for her than she wanted.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em> Turns out, I have a few moments of the next morning to cover, so there will be one more chapter. :) Reviews are like crack, but more than that, they're received with deep appreciation and gratitude. Feedback on this is appreciated. The poem seemed a little intense to me, but also SO perfect a capture of his feelings for her... still waffling on some of my decisions here...


	4. Chapter 4: Devastation

Her morning ritual started off like that of most mornings. Shower, change, make-up. She opened the box with her mother's ring and tied it around her neck beneath her dress uniform, her father's watch sliding on her wrist with the ease of practice. She hesitated as she brushed her fingers over the other things in the box. Two folded letters lay beneath the watch, so different in tone and style. Royce's words were blunt. Castle's were... She didn't yet have words for it. _Naked_.

Beckett and her father were early at the funeral. It smelled like spring and growing things amidst the rows of stone. Her heart ached for Evelyn, for the tear-stained face of one daughter and the bravely stoic features of the other.

When the Castle town car pulled up, Alexis got to Beckett before he did. It meant something to him, the way she wrapped her arms so unstintingly, lovingly, around his daughter. Kate smoothed a lock of Alexis' hair back as she accepted condolences. "Thank you, Alexis."

His mother was next in line to embrace Kate in the moments before the funeral started. "Oh, darling...I'm so sorry."

When his own time came to greet her, he looked her over in her dress uniform. Not quite crass enough to voice the thought in his head, he settled for a lift of his brows that she knew him too well to misinterpret. The ghost of a smile and eye roll was worth it.

She moved to cue people to their seats, to wait for the arrival of the hearse. They surrendered to the flow of the day, the sound of drums in the air, the cadenced steps to carry Montgomery to his last resting place. Little details would stand out in his mind for years – the buzz of a fly, the way the morning sun beat down, the precision of the hands folding the flag.

After they lay the casket down, they moved to their respective places. He stood near her, which felt right to him, and a little to her right so he could see her face. He stood ready to follow her heartfelt, carefully considered eulogy with the poem Evelyn Montgomery requested.

He had his few words memorized, John Donne's immortal lines from "No Man is an Island." The words echoed in his mind. _Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind... _

He was proud of her, of the steadiness in her voice (though he expected no less). He listened to her, to her every inflection...and swallowed hard when she said, "And if you're lucky, you find someone to stand with you." She turned her head, seeking him out not far from her side.

_Always. _

Their eyes met, a silent acknowledgment passing. It became another detail he would never forget of that day, the intensity of the look in her eyes.

And in that exchange, he learned the devastation of real hope.

_The way of love is not a subtle argument.  
><em>_The door there is devastation.  
><em>_Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.  
><em>_How do they learn it?  
><em>_They fall, and falling, they're given wings._

_- Rumi_

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em> The reviews have delighted me, have heartened me, and have brightened my days. Thank you.


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